Discover Extraordinary Food Plots – John O’Brion

September 1, 2017

WTR 421JB | Food Plots

 

Regardless of whether your property is large or small, it’s important to plant food plots correctly. In this episode, Bruce interviews crop advisor and wildlife nutritionist John O’Brion from Grandpa Ray Outdoors, on animal nutrition and property management. John shares his knowledge and experience in planning food plots and planting for the year. Listen to the podcast episode for more food plot, nutrition, and planting tips for your whitetail deer.

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LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:

Discover Extraordinary Food Plots – John O’Brion

Next up on the show is a good friend of mine from Wisconsin, John O’Brion. John has a company called Grandpa Ray Outdoors and you’ve known him a couple of times on the show. I keep going back to John because he’s always got something interesting to say about building a great deer herd, a balanced deer herd, a healthy deer herd, a deer herd that has some great competition for the bucks. The does are healthy, especially when they’re lactating and taking care of their fawns. John brings a wealth of experience, years of experience to the table. Sit back, relax and enjoy John O’Brion of Grandpa Ray outdoors.

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What is exactly the topic? Who knows what the topic direction is going to go but we’re looking at alternative ways of thinking and we have a few little bullet points, some overviews and some aspects of that we’re going to talk about? The first thing, there are many people who think about brassica and there are many people I’ve talked to that only plant their food plots in the fall. My thing is I try to educate people to think like a farmer and look at things in reverse in certain ways. If you’re a farmer and you plant corn and soybeans or winter wheat, there are many conservationists, there are also the different programs there that farmers get paid to plant cover crops. When the corn, the beans and the wheat come off, guides are planning different cover crops.

If you’re a food plotter many people focus on the fall, looking ahead to the next fall, why don’t you plant spring food plot cover crops? That’s a great time to start setting yourself up. Also, if you are used to planting this fall food plots, which tend to focus on brassicas. If you want to be productive and have a healthy food plot, not just for the current year, not just for next year but for many years in the future, it does have its advantages to be planting a spring cover crop to set your fall plots up. My thinking is don’t just think about brassicas and think about 3, 4 months before you’re going to plant these brassicas and some of the steps you need to be looking at.

John, thinking about this, we’ve started off and some of the folks may not know you. Before we go too far, you’re from Grandpa Ray Outdoors. Why don’t you tell them a little bit about what you do, who you serve, how they can connect with you, and then we’ll move onto the next topic.

I’ve been in the industry for years doing animal nutrition and wildlife seed cover crops. Grandpa Ray Outdoors is the branch of O’Brion Agri Services. We have a dealer chain set up where we’re up to 60 dealers across the United States, starting with Wisconsin and moving outward. I have an online business that we’re dealing with people all over the United States. I do a number of seminars. I’ve done seminars in Indiana, Pennsylvania. We’ll be looking at doing more outside of Wisconsin with a featured speaker at the Wisconsin Deer and Turkey Expo, the Wisconsin Bowhunters Association and as well as The Journal Sentinel Sports Show. I also did another fifteen seminars. We started a seed company not to put seed on a shelf but to educate people and I named the business after my grandpa, Grandpa Ray. We’re doing a lot of things to help raise money for worthy causes like the Outdoor Heritage Education Center. Our focus is on our youth and our future. We sell seed, we sell nutrition products but first and foremost, we’re an education company.

If somebody is reading and they want to reach out to you, you go to GrandpaRayOutdoors.com.

That is the website. Email address, we did make a slight change here, it’s [email protected]. Also, we’re on Facebook at GrandpaRayOutdoors. We’re also on Twitter and using Instagram. We also have a YouTube channel, if you Google or go on YouTube and plugin Grandpa Ray Outdoors, there are probably 40, 45 videos on there which also offer a lot of useful, helpful, practical tips.

I want you to mention your monthly newsletter, John.

I also have a program membership for $20 a year, you get 10% off all your orders through dealers or online. You get a monthly newsletter where I’m sharing on the 15th of every month, a bunch of different tips. Usually we’re covering stuff that I won’t share on social media because even though I am doing a lot on social media, I don’t want to educate the whole world on some of the stuff, plus we’re also doing a lot of experimental mixes, a lot of stuff that we will talk about. There are some other little benefits where I run little hot deals, specials and things like that, that you have to be a program member to be able to receive.

Where were we, brassicas?

Thinking beyond brassicas, where people use these start-up courses taking a soil test, I encourage everybody I work with to take a soil test. Without having a soil test, how do you know what to fertilize it with? We’ll touch on a little bit later too on fall fertilization on perennials, I’m seeing about 90% of my soil tests that I’m getting back throughout the United States, guys being short on potassium. I touched on thinking about putting cover crops down in the spring and that also is a great time to be putting your lime, your egg lime, your pulp lime down in the spring, thinking ahead to the fall versus, “I need lime, I took a soil test. I’ve got to plant here in a couple of weeks.” It needs up to six months for this lime to effectively work.

Spring is a great time to get the soil test taken. You need lime, you need your pH raised and get that taken care of. Another advantage of using the spring cover crops is, it’s a great time to kill weeds, smother weeds, and it can be fixing nitrogen. You could also be building organic matter to help incorporate into the ground. Especially for these guys that got lighter ground and sandy ground, it’s a great time to be working on those aspects in preparation for August, September brassica type of planting.

We’re getting a lot of questions from some of the readers and they’ll have a situation where they’ve got a smaller plot of ground. There are a lot of ag crops around them and they said, “We’re competing with the ag crops and the other farms to bring deer to their smaller plot.” If that was your problem, what would you do to take and bring the mature deer to your piece?

WTR 421JB | Food Plots

Many people in the industry would say, “Let’s plant your own soybeans on that.” That is necessarily the way I would go about it. For example, one of the properties that are featured in some of the popular hunting magazines have shot pictures out there, some nice deer and my website were shot on this property, that’s why I always ask, “What are the neighbors planting not in general but this year?” Right across the fence line on this property, the guy is planting a lot of soybeans. Why would my client want to put a lot of soybeans on his property? What we’re going to be doing is taking advantage of the neighbor.

Those beans are going to start drying down in early September. We’re focusing in that area there, more of the perennials, the alfalfa base and the clovers. We’re also focusing more on winter feed in that area, as well as having some lush like my fall draw that the deer will be coming into during that first couple of weeks of both seasons. It’s an alternative way of thinking. If the neighbors are planting all the corn and beans and if that’s mainly what they got and they don’t have too much for hayfields of alfalfa and clover field, I don’t know why we’d want to focus on those areas. We want to let the neighbors feed those deer during the months leading up the hunting season. When that time of year comes around where hunting season starts, we want to have those forges on our property that’s desirable to the deer. They’re not going to be still hanging out eating the dried down beans and the corn if you got these great early season alternatives for your food plots.

Let’s say if my customer and his neighbor that’s mainly going to be corn adjacent to his property because they’re flip-flopping corn and beans. We will come back in with some more soybeans. Every situation is different based on what questions I ask based on what my clients tell me their neighbors are doing. As a general rule of thumb, I want to have about a third of my property into the perennials being clovers and alfalfas. I want a third of my property being focused on the brassicas, which would also include an overlooked area which should be your winter balls, being rutabaga, turnips, it can be radishes, weeds, sugar beets or fodder beets.

That last third, depending on how much acreage you’ve got. If it’s the guy that’s only got 0.5 acres, maybe 1 acre, 1.5 acres of food plots, I wouldn’t be focusing on the corn and beans. The corn and beans, there’s not enough to feed that many deer on your property and hold them. I call it a flex acre, that third of your property could be a blend. I’ve got a couple of different options we are testing, we’re doing, where it might have soybeans, CanaMaize, which is a type of Canadian corn, sunflowers, you could have some WGF Grain Sorghum. It could be a blend of those species, which also will reduce the chance that the deer are going to hammer down that small plot of soybeans that you have on your property for those guys that have limited acreage.

Bruce, have you got any thoughts on that from some of the questions we’ve been getting?

John, when do you set up your plan? A lot of people say, “My neighbor said to do this.” I’ve been telling people, set up your own plan so you know what’s going to go in the spring, summer, fall and then winter, and then you can rotate that on any given year depending on what your neighbor does. Let’s talk a little about your plan because everybody should have one, it shouldn’t be, “I’m going to plant this,” without any rhyme or reason.

Most farmers nowadays, they’re practicing crop rotation. I’m a huge advocate for plot rotation. When’s a good time? I started doing a lot of plans, I’ve probably worked with about 400 different people and we’ve started in November. If it’s me, a great time to start even in my case, I’m sitting in my deer stand looking at my food plots during gun season, I’m thinking, “What am I going to want to do next year?” That might be a great time for the audience to be considering their next year’s plan. When am I doing a hard copy for people and I’m putting down in what field? What to plant? How much of the plant? What fertilizers for the plant do you use?

I also try to get people to think not just that year, but down the line because what you plant can affect what’s going to grow effectively next year. Also, our fertilizations can also affect now and into the future. Another part of that equation is if you’re planting soybeans, think like a farmer and think about coming back in the corn after soybeans to capture the nitrogen. If you’re looking at frost seeding your perennials, a thing that people could consider is brassicas. I do sell three different brassica blends, but there’s one of them that’s called Frosty Delight. It’s a great mix for setting yourself up in an area where you can be frost seeding the following years.

That’s part of why a lot of people turn to me, I give them the advice, I give them some thoughts on, “This is what I would do this year.” Also, we’ll walk them through what we want to be doing for next year. Not many people do that, but should at least have a rough idea of what they’re going to do and Mother Nature always comes into play. Especially in Wisconsin, where at least you’ve got some flexibility, the term flex-acres. For example in Wisconsin, there are many guys that aren’t able to get their corn and soybeans planted yet, what happens if they can’t get their corn and soybeans planted by June 15th? We got options. Have a plan, but also be prepared to have a good backup plan.

I’m thinking of the piece of property that I have in Tennessee. Let’s say there’s an old roadbed that I want to take and turn it into a food plot. Like many of the old roadbeds, there are so much sheltered or shaded by the surrounding trees. I think about if you’re taking a soil sample and the thing could be 0.5 miles long or longer. For a strategy to take and consider what you would put on a roadbed, what goes through your mind if somebody asks you that type of question?

When it comes to the roadbed, here are the three questions I ask. Are you going to be driving over it much often? Are you going to be hunting in certain spots there? How much shade is it? Many of these little logging roads might only be 6 to 10 feet wide, and the odds that there’s a lot of canopy in these areas is slim to none. For example, I put together a good multiple purpose logging trail mix, which is also great nutritionally. There are some exceptions, where if guys do have a wider area, I do have a mix that I call inner sanctum that’s even a little bit better nutritionally, a little bit more attractive to the deer and also a little bit more cold tolerant. Once people answer those questions, then I usually will recommend which direction to go on it. The strategy that many people have is to have these areas to get into your stands and so on so forth, that’s not always where people are hunting over. We might have little staging areas off those logging roads, little micro plots or little kill plots and that tends to be even a little bit better strategy but easier to hop too as well.

One technique on the logging trails or the trails that don’t get used heavily is that you put a micro plot to shortstop them from going to their major feeding area.

Plant not just for that year, but down the line, because what you plant can affect what's going to grow effectively next year. Share on X

I’ve got something for you there, Bruce. One strategy we do with some of the hunting shows is from my field step, even if you have a logging trail mix and you have a more desirable plot that they’re going through. If you are going to put a couple of stands in these areas, instead of planning logging trail through that whole area, we will do an area within bow range, maybe 20 yards in each side, 30 yards on each side of that stand even if it’s a little shady. I got a mix that we will be releasing, it’s available to program members and that cold tolerant, I use it for little areas I call buck plots, not that the does won’t eat it but it’s desirable to bucks. We’re creating a logging road mix, a little staging area within bow range for those guys that are going to hunt off one of those main paths in that. That’s a whole other little trick beyond the seed, we’ll also put cedar post out there, or maybe we’re going to create a little scrape with some licking branches. Maybe we’ll put a little waterhole or a cattle tank right there. Maybe we’ll do all three of those things, a great little strategy.

John, you and I should do an article called Short Stopping Deer on Logging Trails.

What it’s called is you throw one of your Whitetail Rendezvous hats down there and then they’ll bust you and pick up. If you put Bruce’s hat down there with a little cover scent and it’s as good as gold.

You’re being silly, thank you for the props out for Whitetail Rendezvous but let’s get back to the show, Bob.

What I was thinking about as well as for the guys that always talk about, “I see this shooter buck that I want to get to and it’s a distance away.” I was thinking about, if it was me and I was going to be in a stand, how could I take and create a plot in front of my stand that would have a greater opportunity of bringing that buck closer instead of the other side of the food plot? I don’t know if that’s possible.

There are a few strategies there going back and think beyond brassicas, corn and beans. What I tend to like to do is not just for the deer hunters but also is an advantage for the turkey hunters, on any of these areas, let’s say if you have 1 acre to a 5-acre field, you get a wood’s edge. These plots tend to be right on the wood’s edges or small little fields of woodsy areas. We want to create a scrape line and it could be 10 yards wide, 20, 30, you have a big enough field that can be 30 yards wide and I like that because it’s also good for range finding.

It’s also good for creating mock scrapes or using their natural scrape lines along the edges and those deer, the bucks would have a good little travel quarter there. What people will tend to do and people do them, do the mock scrape, licking branches. You could put a cedar post out there in front of you or slightly off from the front of your bow stand there. There are other people that are using hemp ropes and other little tricks there to make that area almost like the old party line telephone system work, those bucks and even the does you’ll see using those areas and they’re communicating.

You get those out now, those deer are going to be starting to use those areas and every little thing you can do. Have the scrape lines, have this deer poles, have a little water tanker up or a little a waterhole there and we want to have the perennial clovers on edge. What you’ll tend to do is a little bit farther out, we’re going to have what the deer are going to want to eat in December, October. If you’re going to also do another brassica blend more with the winter bulbs or the more cold-tolerant, I’m moving farther out in the field from there, where you’re about to reach them if you do have guns stand in that. Bring the clovers closest to the edges and there also tend to be more shade tolerant.

Do more of our annual clover mixes with some of the brassicas that deer tend to eat a little earlier and then more of the winter bulbs and frigid Winfred brassicas and kales farther off from the stand. Another little trick too is if you’re going to rotate beans and corn, if you have your corn beyond that scrape line area that becomes a nice little travel corridor. Those deer, the bucks, when they’re staging on the wood’s edge, they can’t see what’s beyond that corn strip.

You could cut a little lane, make a little highway. They’re going to come from the woods. They’re going to walk through the clover, they’re going to walk right down an area in front of you to get to that next destination, maybe that was soybeans, the next strip of soybeans. Maybe that strip of soybeans, you broadcast winter bulbs and do it in early August or a brassica blend, which is another strategy with our topic being thought beyond brassicas, that’s what you could do. The scrape line with the perennials, corn, which also gives you a little bit of advantage for those guys that say, “Bruce, I get bucks that stand on the edge of the woods and they won’t come out.” That’s a trick that you can get them to come out because they know there’s something out in that farther plot, but if they can’t see it, they need to have a reason to go find what’s out there. We want to keep the bucks moving, make it like it’s a highway, keep them always moving, looking and searching. That’s another little strategy you could be using.

That’s what a lot of people have asked me about, “How can I move bucks to where I want him to get to near my stand, 20, 30 yards from my stand.” What John has shared was you have different crops and seeding in there and then you have a strip of corn but in the middle of the corn, you might put beans or something. The deer or the bucks will feel comfortable walking between those two rows of corn because they’re hidden, they feel safe and secure. If you’re going to do any of these pathways, make sure the bucks are going to feel safe and secure and you’ll have a lot more activity.

There are another couple of tricks too, besides corn, for the guys that we talked about going to have the acres to do it, I use screening. Many people talk about using screening to get in and out of your stands, we also use screening for some other purposes. I’m thinking beyond on the brassicas. I like using screening, if you’ve got a neighbor that hunts your fence line, put a block of my screening mix which is a four-way mix. It also gives you some emergency winter feed there, it got the Egyptian weeds, the sorghums. I’ve got some WGF Grain Sorghum, when it gets to be January, February, that there’s not much else to eat, they’ll pick through it but will block the fence line.

WTR 421JB | Food Plots

The neighbor can’t be either shooting on your property or we’re going to keep the deer from traveling right on that fence line. Another thing you can do, you could have that clover, a perennial mix along the edge and we could do a strip, even if it’s only ten feet wide all the way around your plot. If you don’t even have a field, just to see if you have an inner field plot, like in the open area. We’ll go around that whole plot using my fortress mix, and then what we’ll do is we figure out where you’re going to put your stand, and try to limit. Instead of the deer walking in randomly, six spots, ten spots, different trails inside field, we’ll reduce it.

Maybe what we’ll do is lease some openings or clip or mow down a couple of areas there to that to make it like a highway where the deer are going to walk through those openings that you created by making your perimeter a screening. Your screening also can be to direct deer. Some people will also use the screening to funnel deer. You could be using screening instead around the field edge, maybe we’re out in the middle of the field and you had some corn and then you also had some beans and we can put a strip of screening. I’ve seen there’s a property with a hunting show where the guy has got a few ground blinds and he tends to put them in the middle of a 5, 6-acre field. There are ways we can get deer to walk from the field edge, into these bigger, inner field plots, using screening. Every property is different, it depends on how the land lays but there are other little tricks too. You could be using your corn and/or even a mix that has sunflowers and sunn hemp.

For example, another alternative way of thinking, there’s a mix I put together, it’s got sorghum and sunn hemp, which is great for building soil, organic matter fixing nitrogen and I also put some buckwheat with it. You can plan it in June, you could till it down to set up your brassica plots. What some people see on social media is it grew tall and it could be a great little way that if you get sandy ground, new ground, that you could build soil. After the year’s done and if we’re using it for blocking and screening, it becomes a lot of organic matter.

We do have a warm season that’s a dual purpose that could be either screening or soil building, and you can also get deer. For me, in my education plot, we had a lot of nice buck pictures that we had because of this brassica product that we put out there to show people it’s a good little soil builder. It happened to be a good draw because sunn hemp is palatable to deer and they felt secure picking through it and as we got enough height there, it became a good little sanctuary. Another little thing too, some people will run switchgrass or native grasses, either along the edging or even make a blocking. If you’ve got a bigger field and then put your food plots inside that and make 2, 3 or 4 openings where they’ll walk through, that little doorway to get into your little secluded sanctuary type of plot.

I’m sitting here thinking about the reader that’s going like, “I’ve got a fairly complex piece of ground or I don’t quite know what to do.” If they were to take in and be able to talk with you about their piece of the ground using Google Earth, could you make those kinds of recommendations and opinions by looking at a potential hunting area from Google Earth?

I use Google Earth, I also use HuntStand app, and people get to use HuntStand and there are some other apps out there too but they can put on there where their stands are, I can look at it. I do that as part of my plans that I offer for people, I charge for doing that. I also can go out on properties throughout the United States and even get my foot on the ground to give them little plans in that too. With the soil test, and with the technology we got with the aerial maps on that, I can do pretty good for most people, the map out. Here’s what I would plant, I can measure these areas as well. I can take a little picture for some people and show them, “This is the block where I want you to plant this mix. This is how much seed you need to plant there of this type of seed.”

Also, when they do the soil tests, “This is how many pounds of this particular fertilizer I recommend to plant on that.” People get a nice detailed little plan. I keep a record of it and then I also can help set it up for down the line. I don’t charge a ridiculous amount of money to do that, that’s part of the service that I do offer. I probably did almost 400 of those for different people. If it seems like it’s a little much for people, I have a little questionnaire that I send to everybody. I find out what kind of equipment they got. I find out quite a bit of information and then I can give great answers based on as much stuff as they can share with me.

It’s attractive to think you could get a plan to drive the deer or hold the deer. Did we already go into overseeding? Did we already talk about that?

No, and we’ve got a good picture of that.

Is that the one you want, John?

That one there we could talk about, leave it there. The picture with the soybeans, it’s a strategy that I use. I work with a lot of guys that have a lot of deer numbers and most people in general, want to see more deer on your property. The industry tends to say, “Let’s plant forage beans. Let’s plant this X, Y, Z bean.” The whole deer on your property, to feed deer close to 365 days a year, once it gets to be January, February, hardly anybody has enough feed on their property. What I want to do and many of my customers do is that there is a bean, and I’m not recommending to do this, I planted that bean on July 1st because of Mother Nature and it was experimental. It’s a bean you could plant any time. It’s conventional. It’s a blend of a medium tall bean, but it’s designed to drop leaves earlier. It’s an earlier maturing bean, not a long maturing bean like these forage beans.

The advantage is we’ll go out there in early August and we’ll overseed winter bulbs and brassicas because you’re going to be getting rid of that canopy quicker. That’ll allow more time to get more growth from these brassicas. That is one strategy, instead of planting beans and when they’re wiped down, there’s nothing there. If you’ve got pod beans and then when those pod beans are gone in October, November, and you have bare ground and if maybe you’re doing a late gun season or late season bow hunting, most deer might be in your neighbors.

WTR 421JB | Food Plots

I want to keep them on your land. I also want to have January, February feed. That’s one strategy, use your blend like I have that’s designed to dry down fast. I’ll tell you another little strategy and that was the one with the corn where it shows clover. It depends on when you spray your corn with Roundup or if you’re using Roundup. You could go back that same day that you sprayed your Roundup, let’s say late May, early June you could spend either annual clovers, perennial clovers, out in your corn.

You’re fixing nitrogen. Looking ahead to the future, when that corn dries down, you’ve also got another reason to keep deer on your property, even if the deer don’t eat that much for that clover. You’re fixing nitrogen, which is saving you money for next year. Maybe if you’re using a perennial clover blend, that’s going to regrow next spring. Those does that are ready to drop fawns or dropping fawns, those bucks that are starting to replenish themselves to grow big antlers. You’ve got great feed there right away in the spring.

That’s a strategy that there’s a study done by the University of Wisconsin years ago that showed there are some benefits, you see that up to 10, 15-bushel response when you plant foreign after legumes. This is a strategy that they’re looking at as a cover crop that you’re planting either in June or maybe you can go out in early August, middle of August, and broadcast that seed. Let Mother Nature do the job and it gives you more than feed for deer. It’s good for the pocketbook and it’s good for the future. It’s good for holding soil. It’s a good conservation practice as well.

We’ve got the overseed and we’ve got the clover and the corn. What are we going to talk about next?

There are a couple of other options to them besides the plain brassica type of blend. With ground, for new plot or even a guy that’s planting in the fall, you can be putting a spring cover crop like my soil builder mix. You can be using an annual clover plow down. You can be putting straight oats out there in the spring, plow it down and then you go back and plant your brassicas in the fall. Another little strategy that we used and showed at the education plot, you could be using a soil builder.

We can be using buckwheat, we can be using oats, whatever you decide to plant in the spring. What I had is my soil builder mix which had annual clovers. What we did is we clip that mix short to the ground, normally we don’t want to clip any shorter than six inches. I clipped it almost to the ground to stunt these annual clovers. We broadcast seed that same day. I ran over the top of it with a roller to get a little better seed to soil contact and it became like no-till fall brassica food plotting.

That’s another alternative strategy that most people don’t think about is plant something in the spring, and if you’ve got the annual clovers, you’re fixing nitrogen, you’re saving on fertilizer costs, you’re keeping weeds at bay. Instead of having to work the ground again, go back out there the first week or two in August, spin the seed. If you could roll it, better, or even if a guy wanted to work the ground a little bit, you can spin that seed and lightly go cross the little narrow or drag or whatever. Even though you might rough up and cause a little stress on some of those clovers, they’re going to come back for the most part. You’re going to have a mix with annual clovers, brassicas and those deer are going to be drawn in there that first week or 2 or 3 of bow seasons. That’s another alternative way of thinking for setting yourself up for these fall brassica plots.

There’s one more picture that I thought was interesting and I was not sure exactly what I was looking at. Let’s dive into this one.

There is a certain amount of people that want to plant and get everything done early. For those guys that want to put stuff in the ground late May or early June. What I mean by stuff is your brassicas, if you’re planting turnips in June, they’re going to get over mature and woody and the deer aren’t going to want to eat them. You plant radishes early in the same way, they’re going to mature quick. This is a mix I put together that has slow-growing balls. It’s got swedes, which are a big ball that takes up to 150 days to mature. It’s got rutabagas, which look like a turnip but bigger and sweeter, needing about 100 days to mature. It’s got fodder beets, it looks like a radish, has the same color, the same leaf there that you can see, that red appearance there. They’re less finicky than sugar beets. Sugar beets won’t like water, fodder beets tend to be a little more diverse.

I also got some forbs in there. I’ve got some chicory and plantain which the deer likes. They love it. It’s a mix that you can be planting in June and you’re not going to have to worry about these brassicas being planted too early. That’s another alternative. I’ve never seen anything like that done in the industry. We’ve test early for a year or two in advance, I’ve had some people say, “That degraded my property.” It’s also drought-tolerant, that mix. It’s great nutritionally on the minerals and it loosens the soil which sets yourself up for the future. That’s the bulb mix, the brassica mix that you could plant early.

How early, John?

About the last week in May through June, depending on your location. The mix is drought tolerant and fast-growing. I tend to tell people if you go farther South, like down into Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, you probably could even be planting it in April. We want to be doing that in a May, June time frame.

You should at least have a rough idea of what you’re going to do, and mother nature will come into play. Share on X

In any year, when will it be all gone? When will the deer take it down so it’s not valuable anymore?

It depends on your deer numbers and on how much acres of that you planted. It depends on what else you planted and what the neighbors planted. To be honest, those winter bulbs like the swedes and the rutabaga, the deer tend to go in and go after that in December and January. That’s our stockpile forage, that’s our winter feed. The plantain and the chicory, they’re going to be in there picking through it all throughout the year in that. They’ll start hitting that at the end of July and August, with the fodder beet tops but they’re going to back off on that in October, probably November, and then they’re going to be going after those bulbs when the rest of your forage on your properties fizzled out. If you plant your property properly, you’re going to have a feed that’s more desirable than this mix. You’re going to have the alfalfas and clovers that they’re going to be eating. They’re going to be eating the beans. They’re going to be eating your sweeter brassicas and some of these other annual clovers if you do use those. This mix, we’re going to be using it more in mind thinking about December, January and February.

I was thinking, there was a guy down in Texas that was talking about his challenges on trying to attract deer and he says, “I’m on a ridge and I can see a long way away and the deer seems to be attracted to my neighbor’s location.” You mentioned doing some watering strategies and for the more arid climates. Do you have experience or thoughts on what you can do as far as water and crop strategy to attract these bucks to your side of the draw?

I had a long talk with a wildlife biologist in Utah and we were talking about different strategies and different species and a couple of things that they use out there that people overlook throughout the United States. That’s why I like to get as much information on a property as possible. People might say, “I’ve got ditches. I’ve got a pond and I have too much water.” Who’s got too much water? It starts with this, it starts with the soil tests, it starts with the proper fertilization, having healthy soil. No matter what we plant, we’re going to do a better job of what we’re planting. It has to be more nutritious.

If the neighbor’s got water and you don’t have water, you’ve got a good feed, he’s got a good feed, he’s got the water, that’s where the deer are going to be. They need water. It’s the most important thing. Creating scrape lines, licking branches, every little thing you do in addition to what you’ve been doing, it’s going to tilt the table in your success. There’s no such thing as doing too many things. Some people might say, “Could you plant too many acres of food plots?” Not sure I would say that but there’s a better way to lay them out.

For example, the deer tend to be more on your neighbors, ask yourself, “What is he doing that you’re not doing? What does he have that you don’t have?” Even if he has desirable forages, similar to what you’ve got, if you have the proper pH, you’re doing the right fertilization, you’re doing the proper timing of clippings on your perennials. You’ve got water tanks, waterholes, if it’s legal you’re using minerals and attractants, but yet another thing that people overlook, plant health, micronutrients and insects.

If you have healthy forages, they tend not to attract insects as much. If you get insect pressure, your forage is going to be bitter. They’re going to be at your neighbor’s if your neighbors don’t have the insect pressure that you have. Another strategy for $5 to $10 an acre, use foliar plant foods. It’s got nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. It’s got manganese, zinc, copper, cobalt, boron and I also use Humic. Most progressive farmers use micronutrients, most food plotters don’t. Why is that? That’s a great question to ask you. Why don’t you use micronutrients? It’s $5 to $10 an acre. If you end up getting about $80, $100 more value of growth, that’s a great return.

What happens if you can draw deer to where you want them to be because the plants are healthy because they’re high in protein, they’re more nutritious, but they’re higher in sugar? That’s something I talk about all the time. No matter what you do, no matter what you plant, use ammonium sulfate to jack your sugars up. Use the right fertilization to jack your sugars up. Stay tuned for those of you that end up following me on social media, my education plot, we’ll be demonstrating and taking a lot of different forage tests. We also will be providing Brix reading using a refractometer where people will see what happens if I spray half of each block of forages with plant foods, the other half I don’t.

I’ve done this, improved this in the past but now I’ve got to prove it to more people in public with a scientific demonstration. I’ve demonstrated where I can draw deer from two bedding areas to the middle of the field because I sprayed the middle of the field with all your plant foods, which make them higher in sugar, healthier, more nutritious. That’s why deer are going to eat on your property versus the neighbors because if you do all these little things that don’t cost much money, it isn’t so much what you plant, it’s doing a great job or a better job of what you’re planting than what the next guy is.

To bring this to a close, we often get the question of the guy that says, “I capture images of big bucks at night and I never see him during the day.” Is there a food strategy to get those reluctant fellows out in the daylight?

That’s what we touched on too. For example, the scrape lines help and making the bucks more encouraged starting earlier in the year making those mock scrapes earlier in the year. You still might have a smart old buck to start, still might stage inside the woods, that’s where you could have the screening. If they’re staging there, put some screening right on the edge of the woods and then have the little destination plot outside of it so those bucks can’t see the does. You cut yourself a couple of shooting lanes, a couple of areas where you want that buck to walk, they’re going to be more apt to want to do it.

Another little strategy, if the ground is laid out a certain way, you see a lot of these bucks and all these deer will travel inside the woods 10, 15 yards especially if there’s a little depressional dip, I call it the little inner funnel. You might make little micro plot inside the woods, a little kill plot for those smart old bucks that will hang up. Maybe what you do is, and I’ve seen this, I’ll give a little shout-out to Art Helin with Art Helin Outdoors and his dad shot a nice buck in the water hole. When you get some of these bucks that are in the pre-rut, especially in areas with weather that’s warm, maybe you put a waterhole.

That’s where they’re going to need water, but also maybe they’re going there to cool down. There’s been more than one buckshot out of a water hole. I’ve talked a lot of guys that put water holes in, even if it’s before you’re getting to that food source, maybe you put a water hole and a cedar post right there. Maybe if it’s legal to use deer man or put a water hole, cedar posts and some deer mineral in that same spot. Maybe it’s twenty yards inside the woods. Maybe you’ve got a little logging road that leads out to that food pot. That’s a couple of little things to consider.

John, it’s been a pleasure and Bruce, you’ve got anything else you want to chat about?

That’s a wrap, time for a nap.

John, we appreciate it and thanks for all the thoughts and wisdom. For folks that want to get a hold of you, what’s the best way for them to reach you if they want to get an analysis of their ground?

You can call me at (608) 235-0628, or you can email me at [email protected]. You can check out the website, which is GrandpaRayOutdoors.com. There are a lot of educational tools we’ve got out there and look for some of the pictures and the data from the educational plot. It should be some interesting, unbiased data. Many people think about the Dyna clovers and some of the main species, but there are a lot of different forages that are overlooked that are healthy for deer and also are attractive to deer. That’s what we’re about is to try to give you something else to think about.

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In the next episode of Whitetail Rendezvous, we’re going to travel to Dodgeville, Wisconsin and catch up with Art Helin. Art Helin has Art Helin Outdoors. Art travels all over the Midwest doing seminars all winter long because he represents some great companies like Vortex, Knight & Hale, and Realtree. More than that, Art spins a good story and he gets people laughing and he sure does know his stuff.

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